Certificate: 15

Running Time: 96 mins

UK Distributor: Netflix

UK Release Date: 24 April 2026

WHO’S IN APEX?

Charlize Theron, Taron Egerton, Eric Bana, Zac Garred, Caitlin Stasey, Bessie Holland

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Baltasar Kormákur (director, producer), Jeremy Robbins (writer), Ian Bryce, Peter Chernin, Aj Dix, Beth Kono, Dawn Olmstead, Sam Oussama, David Ready, Charlize Theron and Jenno Topping (producers), Högni Egilsson (composer), Lawrence Sher (cinematographer), Sigurður Eyþórsson (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

An adrenaline junkie (Theron) crosses paths with a mysterious serial killer (Egerton)…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON APEX?

Whether they take place in the middle of the ocean or the uncharted wilderness or even just above Earth’s atmosphere, survival movies always highlight the human necessity to, well, survive. But Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur’s strand of survival thrillers stand out from many of the others for their tendency to emphasise the human aspect of it all, with films like Everest, Adrift and Beast all doing fairly well to make the characters more than just nature’s plaything. As a result, you actually care about Idris Elba long before he punches a lion in Beast, and you feel sad for the poor saps freezing to death on the planet’s highest mountain in Everest, and in Adrift… well, given that it’s a spoiler, I won’t divulge why that particular twist is so effective.

The same goes for Apex, Kormákur’s latest film which introduces a plot straight out of a schlocky B-movie but works around its in-built pulpiness with plenty of that genuine humanity, offering a real emotional balance to some gorgeously shot action that can get quite intense.

We open in Norway, where reckless mountain climber Sasha (Charlize Theron) and her husband Tommy (Eric Bana) are making their way up the Troll Wall until, inevitably, tragedy strikes. Cut to five months later, with Sasha now making her way across the Australian outback where she intends to spend some time doing some kayaking and other types of therapeutic outdoor sports. Some dodgy locals aside, many if not all of them looking and acting like supporting players out of I Spit On Your Grave, things seem to be going well for Sasha… until she meets Ben (Taron Egerton), a crossbow-wielding young man with a rather sinister hunting game in mind for his latest target, who is now forced to use what little resources she has to avoid becoming the prey to his predator.

It is very much your classic cat-and-mouse thriller, but Apex just happens to be very good at being such a thing. Shot almost entirely on-location in New South Wales, Kormákur utilises the actual scenery as much as he can to craft an effective atmosphere where, even though much of it takes place in the great outdoors, you still feel almost impossibly claustrophobic. The nifty camerawork keeps a steady focus on the action while framing the all too inviting wildlife surroundings as menacing creatures in their own right, with everything from caves to river rapids to simple woodland areas all feeling as though they’re in cahoots with Egerton’s deranged villain. It’s unnerving but also quite beautiful, as Lawrence Sher’s cinematography captures everything with such a stunning sense of scope that it almost feels criminal that this is a Netflix exclusive rather than a big-screen event.

But like Kormákur’s other survival movies, the real beauty comes from its humanity. Neither Theron’s Sasha nor Egerton’s Ben are deeply complex characters by any means – they are in every sense the typical respective prey and predator in this situation – but they’re written and performed in such a way where, even when we know just how evil at least one of them can be, you still understand them and what may be going on inside their minds. Screenwriter Jeremy Robbins, this being his first feature credit after writing several episodes of that short-lived Purge series spin-off, gives each of them moments where they actually feel like human beings rather than just hero and villain archetypes, which makes them more relatable in scenes where they (more specifically, Sasha) feel great terror just from being in each other’s presence.

With much of Apex being a two-hander between Theron and Egerton, the actors have a lot more weight on their shoulders to pull such moments off, but of course they’re both more than capable of bringing these characters to life and giving them extra dimensions than they have been in the script. Egerton, in particular, is legitimately intimidating in a rare antagonist role where his boyish charisma is utilised as a disarming weapon here, eventually giving way to something far crazier and a lot darker than anyone would expect for this type of film (without spoilers, you’ll never look at beef jerky the same way ever again). As for Theron, we all know she can nail this kind of action-based hero without even consciously realising it, but here she makes Sasha a believable presence who is competent in her survivalist skills but isn’t immune to some gnarly pain, some involving bear traps and climbing free-solo up steep rock faces like Tom Cruise at the beginning of Mission: Impossible II.

Although the film utilises some noticeable CGI during particular sequences, including an otherwise striking wide shot off a cliff, it’s not only justified as they contain certain stunts that would be too dangerous for any live human to pull off, but they’re also the type of effects that actually enhance the environment rather than distract from it. Nevertheless, it can still take you out of the movie, albeit briefly, whenever the visual effects team clearly takes over from the reality of this vast and unforgiving atmosphere.

With all that going for it, Apex is a solid survival thriller. Not a groundbreaking one by any means, but well-executed enough to remain impressive in its fair share of natural thrills and humanist suspense.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Apex is a solid execution of a straightforward cat-and-mouse survival thriller, with director Baltasar Kormákur deploying a fair amount of stunningly captured wildlife cinematography and necessary (if ropey) visual effects, as well as two strong performances from Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton, to make it as human as it is suspenseful.

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